


Mirror Mirror

by xspike4evax



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 06:24:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4656012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xspike4evax/pseuds/xspike4evax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Giles, looking at Faith was like looking in a mirror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror Mirror

Mirror Mirror 

She had been young and wild; he had been the same. 

She had fallen into a whole new world she had previously had no knowledge of at all; he remembered what that was like. 

She had enjoyed her new found power, revelled in it, abused it; he had some experience in that area. 

She had tumbled quickly into the realms of darkness, savouring the power and freedom it afforded her; he'd felt the same way   
She'd killed a man, ended up with blood stained hands that would never completely be clean again no matter what else she did in her life; he was in the same boat, he had caused a man to die and he was still haunted by his friends face all these years later. 

Looking at her lying quietly in the hospital bed, not asleep exactly, but not part of the real world either, a wave of guilt washed over him. Giles felt responsible for Faith, for how far she had fallen, for what she had become. 

He knew the signs, he knew when teen rebellion was spiralling out of control; becoming infinitely darker and more dangerous and he had done nothing about it. He had chosen to put the blinkers on, fooling himself into believing that Faith was strong enough to come back from the edge on her own. 

Giles had wanted to believe she was better than he had been; it was the biggest mistake he had made. Faith had fallen and fallen hard and he could have stopped it. If he had just spoken to her, tried to understand what was going on in her head he may have been able to help. Instead he had left her to Wesley, a man who had all the authority and influence of a wet mop, and focused his attention on Buffy.   
He had been wrong. He had made a grave mistake. Buffy had almost paid the price for it. 

Faith was paying the price for it. 

Clasping his glasses between his fingers Giles bent his head over his clenched fist, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. "I'm sorry, Faith." 

There was more to say, but it was all rather irrelevant, Faith couldn't hear him and it wouldn't make anything better and it certainly wouldn't stop him feeling as though he were looking in a mirror.


End file.
